Unleased in Texas

I noticed that ULMOs are all jumbled up (LA&TX). The laws are different, so there are different conditions. I hope to start this discussion & have others talk about their situations. I am considering not leasing to TXO because of their ridiculous offer. Same with BP. How about $-0- and 3/16ths & $250 & 3/16ths? Nice guys, huh?

Before this discussion goes much further, GoRicky needs to tell us how many net mineral acres he owns. That is the prime measure of his ability to negotiate. And under Texas pooling statutes, small ownership interests do not have much protection. It's quite possible that is the reason behind the low ball offer. Since it's XTO, I will assume the interest is Haynesville Shale. I'd want the best royalty I could get because I would anticipate that economic wells would be drilled. If I owned a small acreage interest I would not require a bonus at all. I would try to do better than 3/16ths. I wouldn't expect to get 25%.

Can you share the survey & abstract #? In some areas... BP and XTO are your only likely options... unless you want to sign with a speculator and then you won't get much better than that offer. As Skip said, it also matters what size the tract is and what your interest is in the tract. If all others are leased then you stand a good chance of getting left out via SWR 37 exception is you refuse an offer that most of the other owners have agreed to. XTO has some acreage that was leased by other operators long before the Haynesville play began and they may be throwing out the offer that was common in that era to see if they have any takers. If that is the case you can probably get the RI bumped up to 20% unless you are the only holdout. I'd need to know at least the Survey/Abstract # in order to look at what's going on there. There's no forced pooling in TX and it's really hard to force your way into a unit if you have turned down the prevailing offer in the unit and you have an undivided interest in a tract where the other owners are all under lease.

Hahahah! Go tell them to jump in a lake. I would not accept anything under 25% royalties. Seems like they are looking for people who are hard up and willing to give their minerals away.

I always get a flood of letters from companies wanting to purchase my minerals when something big is fixing to happen. My mail box has been stuffed for the last couple of months. Last week I received 11 division orders for the same lease in LaSalle County.

Don't ever accept these letters as within the fine print most state that you are signing over all of your mineral interest in the state of Texas for what they are offering.

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As exciting as this is, we know that we have a responsibility to do this thing correctly. After all, we want the farm to remain a place where the family can gather for another 80 years and beyond. This site was born out of these desires. Before we started this site, googling "shale' brought up little information. Certainly nothing that was useful as we negotiated a lease. Read More